Making sense (and, sometimes, nonsense) out of Current News, Issues, Politics

Monday, May 16, 2016

Venezuela: Another Socialist Utopia Falls Asunder

Socialists always believe that government is the best way to control the destiny of mankind. They believe that without complete government control over people's lives, income inequality will rule and that the rich will get richer and the poor, poorer.

Such was the case in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez in 1998 -- when elected President -- was to turn Venezuela into a socialist utopia with the working class and the poor finally enjoying a better life in a country he felt only served the rich. All of this would would be based on a revolutionary movement that he founded in 1982 called the "Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200".

Properties were seized and given to the poor. He took control of the media and the supreme court to insure that there was no insurrection while he did what he needed to do to bring Marxism to his country. He even managed to make himself "El Presidente" for life. Even though Chavez died young in 2013, his dream was continued by his successor President Maduro -- his former Vice President.

Today, Venezuela is an economic mess. There is no food on store shelves. Even toilet paper is in short supply. Inflation is completely out of control, and this year is expected to exceed 700%; well up from last year's 180% and 172%. That means that prices went up 1000% in just 3 years. Not exactly the ideal inflation rate of 2 to 3%. Because the country is so dependent on oil export revenues, the extreme fall in oil prices has further crippled its economy.

On top of everything else, electricity is in short supply because they were too dependent on hydro-electric power, This, in a country that is awash with oil. In order to conserve electricity, government workers have recently had their workweek cut to two days -- Thursday and Friday. As it is, the country's 2 million government workers had already had the workday slashed to 6 hours. This latest move by Maduro means that the government workers will only work 12 hours a week. This simply means that the country will fall into more turmoil as government services are even more severely curtailed.

Once again, this proves that Socialism does not work. And, I believe that Venezuela will again see another upheaval that will overturn the Chavez-designed Marxist government; and, it could be a violent revolution. The truth is, it may be too late to do anything to fix the country since it has been damaged so much in the last 18 years. The legacy of Hugo Chavez is that Venezuela may wind up being the poorest country in South America. Just the opposite of his original utopian dream.